With the struggles of raising capital and support this year to support Brehm’s FRC Team Megahurts they are focusing on some projects that have fallen by the wayside, which are less financially demanding. The first is to bring the Dune Buggies back to operational status and configure one to drive autonomously!

Thats correct, Team Megahurts will be training a new class of high school students interested in robotics & STEM by designing, building and integrating an autonomous driver control system in one of the teams off road buggies. The concept is simple, but the execution is a very complicated process, especially since safety is a major concern. In principle the larger buggy will be manually driven while the smaller buggy follows autonomously, than means no one will be driving it! Some of the problems the students will have to solve are object avoidance, evaluation of risk/danger factor, fusion of sensor data, locating and tracking of the lead buggy, and gracefully and safely handeling system failures. This project provides a great outlet for our advanced studentes and all of our newcomers.

The first couple of days the team met they were introduced to basic mechanics and engine maintenance. the students removed any visibly damaged parts drained and changed all the fluids. then reassembled the radiator hoses and any other damaged or wore parts. Still left for repare is the ignition system and right front control arm, but we expect to have the engine running within the next week.

The students seemed to enjoy themselves and are very anxious to take it for a spin …

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 2:59 pm
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Brehm Preparatory School Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit accredited
junior and senior high school with a mission to empower students with complex learning
disabilities to recognize and optimize their full potential.